Robert Nyman 
You STILL Work With JavaScript?
Email
Some time ago, I had lunch with a former colleague I last saw in 2000, when we were working together in a project. We got to talking, and eventually he asked me an interesting question.
The History
When we were working together back in 2000, it was the good ol’ days for IT and we were hired as consultants for one of the larger Internet consultancy companies in Stockholm. For instance, when the company was introduced to the stock market, we were standing on a gargantuan balcony in central Stockholm, drinking champagne and looking down at the mob in the streets…
In our project, all team members had about the same music taste, so we constantly listened to some good rock and heavy metal while developing the extranet we were working on. It was a good group of people, and we had some nice times.
Fast Forward To Today(-Ish)
We had lunch at a local place in Stockholm, where we talked about our family situations and what had happened since the IT boom. After the initial “how are things now 8 years later”-phase, we got to talking about our currently professional roles and what we were doing. Before I got to say anything, he tilted his head a little and said:
Please don’t tell me you still work with JavaScript
While he’s a good guy, naturally, I wasn’t too happy about that he either insinuated that it wasn’t “proper” developing, or that by now, I should’ve moved to something more sturdy. Knowing that he’s very nice, he probably meant less harm than I make it out to be, but I was still a bit dumbfounded.
The Web And The Future
To be honest, I couldn’t be more excited by working with JavaScript. In these times and age, JavaScript is used almost everywhere for interaction coding, and with the AJAX revolution and the extremely wide-spread JavaScript libraries, what better coding place is there to be in?
Apparently people have taken the rapid and dynamic developing JavaScript offers to their hearts, and with web browser vendors (at the least the serious ones) implementing crazy-fast rendering engines, JavaScript will be around for a long long time. Therefore, I’m very happy. 
Do you work with JavaScript, and how do you feel about it?
(Note: Opinions expressed in this article and its replies are the opinions of their respective authors and not those of DZone, Inc.)
Comments
Ivan Lazarte replied on Wed, 2008/11/26 - 4:25pm
I work with it and I love it. If you don't know JS or don't want to work with it directly it will be impossible for your company to be on the cusp of next-generation UI/interaction paradigms.
If you're just using some boring data tables or trees then you might as well take a break from it though and leverage any one of the million server-side component frameworks (like Telerix for .NET or Richfaces for Java).
Remember though, the Ipod sure didn't make it because it organized your mp3s into tree/table of mp3s. Carefully planned UI experiences win you big.
Shantanu Kumar replied on Thu, 2008/11/27 - 4:06am
JavaScript is the Assembly Language of the Web. It makes 80 developers out of 100 less productive compared to other languages. What's the point in obsessing with JS? It is projects like GWT are a corrective measure in the right direction.
Deepak Jacob replied on Thu, 2008/11/27 - 7:32am
Javascript is slated to become the most widely used language. The most popular email, chat and calendar application won't work without this language. Day by day new frameworks for javascript are bring released and browsers are getting smarter in the way they handle javascript. Now javascript apps can even run on desktops using Adobe's AIR.
Nobody can ignore this wonderful language, even if they want to.
Justin Yost replied on Fri, 2008/11/28 - 12:31pm